


Revolution

by ilupant



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Infatuation, Light Angst, M/M, Mental Instability, Obsessive Behavior, Other, cryptic, nonbinary reader, not a reflection of real psych wards or mental illness, psych ward au, this is for fun, you're not as stable as you think you are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:00:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27466837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilupant/pseuds/ilupant
Summary: You had worked in the ward for almost a year. You had encountered patients of all kinds, and they had never truly gotten under your skin.Until you met the man with bleached hair, pink-frosted tips, and glittering mint eyes that followed your every move.
Relationships: Choi Saeran/Reader
Comments: 7
Kudos: 43





	Revolution

You kept your head down as you moved down the hallway, avoiding the eyes of the other employees scurrying about the wards. The walls were a boring beige, almost grating to your eyes after having been surrounded by them for the year that you had worked in the ward. Your fingers were curled around the edge of a food cart, the wheels rattling as you pushed it down the sparkling linoleum floors.

You had been making your rounds, delivering the mid-afternoon meals to the patients kept in solitary confinement. It was something that you had done too many times to count. The process was automatic, mechanical. You moved like you always did, repeating the same route like everything was the same.

But it wasn’t. Something different was happening today.

You had heard about the patient who was next on your route. Everyone had. There were always patients that stood out from the rest for one reason or another. Some were too loud, some were too quiet, some were nice, some were not. They differed wildly amongst themselves. No two patients were the same, but none ever differed quite as much as this patient did.

He spoke cryptically, like every word was code, with a voice as smooth as butter. The nurses and orderlies who had come in contact with him said that something about him was inherently ‘creepy,’ something you had heard more times than you could count.

This patient had, apparently, snapped at some point. You had heard differing stories. Some said that he had just started screaming, others said he had attacked patients and nurses. You weren’t sure what exactly had happened, you just knew that whatever he had done landed him in solitary. 

After such an outburst, though, it came as no surprise to you that none of the nurses were particularly excited about being alone in a room with him. As someone usually looked down upon, you were often chosen for the jobs nobody wanted to do- including delivering food to the one patient nobody wanted to go near. You weren’t particularly assertive with your coworkers, so it didn’t take much for you to give in eventually.

_ Figures. _

So there you were, the heels of your shoes echoing off of the floors as you moved beneath bright, fluorescent lights. The door approached you on your right and your stomach twisted with slight discomfort.

You had done this more times than you could count, sure, but it was never particularly exciting.

You came to a stop by the door, raising your hand to knock the wood with your knuckles. Immediately after you extended your keycard from its reel and swiped it. A beep sounded, followed by a loud clicking as the door unlocked. You pushed the door open, eyes briefly ensuring there was room enough for you to enter, and followed the cart into the room. 

The door fell shut behind you and locked immediately after. Your eyes immediately scanned the room to find the infamous patient.

The man was perched at his desk, a neat array of flowers lined up in front of him, considering a crisp and fresh blossom in his hands. You briefly wondered where he had gotten the flowers from, but decided not to dwell on it too much. That wasn’t your prerogative. 

He had a head full of shockingly white hair that crowned sharp mint eyes. A thoughtful face was focused on the flowers as if you didn’t exist. He angled his thumb next to the stem of the flower and studied it for a moment before he laid it down gently on the table. 

His gaze slowly drifted over to you, and he quirked the corner of his lips upward as if in greeting. 

“Funny how resourceful humans can truly be when they must,” he said, pulling out a ruler from his drawer and rolling the shorter edge of it over the stem of the flower, trimming the edge off.

You were slightly more concerned about the presence of the ruler. Where had  _ that _ come from?

_ Definitely something he shouldn’t have. _

Still, you said nothing.

He brought the ruler down with such force that the sound of its plastic edge hitting the faux wooden desk reverberated throughout the room, cutting through the stem of the flower. 

He then stood and lifted up the flower, and, holding it in two hands, offered it to you as though he were handing you a scepter. The carnation seemed to absorb the fluorescent light, a splash of color amidst a room so white that your eyes hurt.

“Wonderful to meet you,” he said to you in a gentle tone. “I’m assuming that you’re my nurse for the afternoon.”

You were taken aback by the offer, the red petals dancing in the light of the air conditioning as if tempting you to accept it. You managed to regain your composure with well-trained ease.

_ Don’t engage. _

That’s what you were always told. Who were you to disobey the rules that had kept this institution running for so long?

_ Don’t engage. _

“I am,” you responded, voice clipped and professional. “As your nurse, however, I’m not permitted to accept anything from you.”

You didn’t mention the presence of the ruler or the flowers.

“Ah,” he replied, placing the flower back onto the table and looking at you. 

He did not, however, seem to be slighted by this, and he merely sat back down at his seat. He lined the rest of the flowers back up and began to angle the ruler to cut them again. 

“I suppose I’ll have to wait until you feel comfortable enough to bend the rules for me,” he said agreeably, studying the angle of the ruler. “But I do appreciate your bringing me my food. I’ve watched you pass by my room before, and I’ve been looking forward to having you bring me one of my meals one of these days.”

A slight frown quirked at your eyebrows. 

He’d been watching you?

Something about that thought deeply unsettled you. You had no clue that these mint eyes had been trained on your figure, picking you apart from the throngs of other staff that passed by.

“I like the way you walk,” he piped back up, suddenly standing again and approaching you. It was then, under the buzzing light of his room, that you were permitted a better look at him. His eyes had a frenzied look about them, penetrating through your facade of confidence as a nurse. You’d been working in the ward for the past four years, an esteemed nurse, following rules to the letter, and taking pride in your position. 

You’d hardly ever had your confidence crumble to bits like this, but something about this man’s persistent efforts to get under your skin succeeded in mere minutes.

It was unnerving. Uncomfortable. Your chest felt strangely suffocated.

Your thoughts were scattered across your mind as he came so close to your face that you could smell the carnations from his uniform lapels. 

“You walk with this  _ specific  _ gait, you see,” he said, tilting his head, his eyes unblinking as words tumbled out of his mouth at an impressive speed. “A near fifteen-degree angle. Almost perfect. There was only one other person in the world that I knew who walked like that, you see. Many have tried to copy her, but it was never the same. It was always much too aggressive. Further in the front, shorter in the back. Shorter in the front, further in the back. Your foot swings like a pendulum. I watch it to fall asleep sometimes during the night.”

His teeth glinted as he ran his tongue across them in the sharp fluorescent lights. “And it sounds like revolution to me.”

Something inside of you twisted and, for a second, you completely forgot how to speak.

His words, pointed and strange, carrying implications you could not decipher, settled beneath your skin and festered in the back of your head. Your nerves were buzzing, like small bugs skittering across your person on thousands of tiny legs.

Did he say these things to everyone? 

You had been around so many patients- more than you could count. You’d had strange things said to you before, from threats to strings of incoherent sentences that didn’t make sense. But something about the way this patient spoke to you made your stomach drop, and you weren't sure why.

Your heart thundered beneath your ribcage, rattling your bones. You struggled to remember protocol- what were you supposed to do?- and you repeated the same two words like a mantra. 

_ Don’t engage. _

Your head was spinning, your composure loosening like thousands of tiny, frayed threads. 

_ Don’t engage. _

But you had rules to follow. 

You found it within yourself to turn around to the cart again, trying to keep your shaky hands as steady as possible as you lifted the platter of food and placed it down on the small table in the room. 

Your head felt hot, and you were confused. You didn’t know why this patient was getting to you so easily, displacing you with surprising ease, but you knew that this was dangerous and that you needed to leave.

“Enjoy your night,” You kept your response short, turning back to the door as you spoke.

He stepped behind you, lithe arms shooting around your form, and gently laid his hands on yours. Long, thin fingers splayed atop yours wordlessly, caging you in place and bringing you to an immediate, sudden halt. He stroked your knuckles as though he was enjoying the feeling of your skin under his. 

“And your skin,” he whispered into your ear, tracing the curves of your cuticles. “I’ve watched how this stale light makes you sweat as you walk back and forth, carrying those dirty trays that they're always making you hold in those pristine hands of yours. Such beautiful hands doing such disgusting work. And for what cause?”

The hair on your neck rose as a shudder danced down your spine. A cold sweat started on your shoulders and you found your breathing becoming more shallow, as if moving too much would only put you in a more precarious position. 

“Your fear is understandable. Anyone would be scared if they didn’t know who they were,” he continued, the pads of his fingers caressing the back of your hands. “I can smell it. But I can promise you that I can deliver you from it.”

The worlds crumpled in on themselves as emotion overtook you, sending wave upon wave of fear coursing through your chest. Your composure had completely snapped, breaking like a dam, flooding you with an icy shock.

Who the hell was this man? 

What did he want from you?

You were unable to gather your thoughts. Your mind felt scrambled, pulled apart like sticky, gooey candy.

This wasn’t the first time that a patient had tried something weird with you- hell, this wasn’t the first time that a patient had succeeded in displacing you- but this felt  _ different. _

He was too close.

Why couldn’t you gather the courage to move away?

“You- this-” You stammered, hands beginning to tremble, “Please- this isn’t appropriate.”

A request. Not a command.

You were a nurse. You were in charge, but there was no authority in your voice. 

This strange man who had his strange flowers splayed out on his desk in a room far too bright had weaseled his way into your head in mere  _ minutes _ , and the ease with which he did so only strengthened your bewilderment. 

“Appropriateness is merely objective,” he whispered into your ear, his breath stirring a few of your baby hairs. 

Another shiver tingled across the back of your neck. 

Maybe more shouting would have been preferred to this. This wasn’t anything like what you’d heard from the other nurses. This wasn’t agitation, misplaced rage, or complete dissociation. This was something entirely different, calculated and aimed directly at you like you were the prey he’d been waiting for.

“I’m curious to see how long you will resist,” he said, spinning you around to face him so suddenly that the dry air danced across your cheeks. “You are the revolution.”

That word rattled around in your head emptily. 

He pressed the flower into your hands, its stem cool against your heated skin. 

“Be my revolution.”

**Author's Note:**

> This wasn't written to be a one-shot actually. I wrote this with my girlfriend for fun a few weeks ago, but I liked it a lot and edited it to make it something more digestible. Clearly, it takes place in an unrealistic setting, but that's okay. This is supposed to be for fun. I have a lot of incomplete works with Saeran and this was one of them for quite a while, so I'm glad I'm finished with it.
> 
> This is more of an Unknown-type Saeran with a reader who's far more unstable than they realize. This seems to be a running theme in most of my works, haha. 
> 
> Obviously, this isn't a real representation of in-patient mental health care facilities. This is all 100% fictional.
> 
> I hope this was enjoyable! Just something small I worked on for a while to get my mind off of things. Please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you think, because I love interacting with readers and hearing what everyone has to say. :)
> 
> Take care and stay healthy!


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